FACT AND FIGURES

Tobacco’s sensitive, just like our ozone layer.
How smoking doesn’t just make holes in our wallets


Because tobacco plants are so prone to disease, some farmers apply herbicides, fertilisers and pesticides as many as sixteen times during the three-month growing period. And even before planting the seedlings, methyl bromide (a highly toxic ozone-depleting chemical) is still used to fumigate the soil – despite moves to phase it out. In 1997, farmers applied nearly 2.5 million kilos of it to tobacco fields worldwide. 1 One way or another, our smoking is affecting the ozone layer.

  1. 1. Tobacco, farmers and pesticides. Pesticide Action Network, 1998